Hydrogen peroxide as miticide?

Question:

I stand corrected. I owe you a plate of Green Eggs and Ham!!! –Glenn

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Horton, dear Glenn, not Grinch! Reka (mother of two) (I may not be up on Monty Python, but I know my Dr. Seuss!) glenn schrieb: Listen very closely. It could be the people of Whoville. You wouldn’t want to turn out to be their Grinch!!! Glenn I’ll get out a magnifying glass and see what I can see. Hope it’s not a whole village and I end up looking into one of their windows! Rick~

Response:

Sunny side up, please! Reka glenn schrieb: – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I stand corrected. I owe you a plate of Green Eggs and Ham!!! –Glenn

Response:

I have just reread this thread and I don’t see anywhere where someone says that a 3% solution of hydrogen peroxide is a good miticide and definitely works. As has been said, mites don’t like water and is this being sprayed on the plants deterring them. As far as mites go, I wouldn’t waste time looking for them in the substrate, they will be on the foliage and if you get a really heavy infestation, they will completely encapsulate portions of the foliage with their webs. A fine mist of water will show off the webbing really well. I have found that they like soft foliaged plants over hard foliage but they will get on almost anything. I have had them on cactus. A small pocket loop(sp) is the best thing to look for them. Check for speckling on soft foliaged plants where they puncture the cells and kill them. Thanks for anymore info on Hydrogen Peroxide Stephen

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Thanks for the inf.. Al Rick~ Spider mites are visible to the naked eye. Just barely. You can see their damage and their dust (read do-do) even more easily. And spider mites make a fine webbing that they use to move around on and cling too. You can shake a plant suspected of spider mites over to piece of white paper and the some of the dust that falls onto it will attempt to crawl away. These would be the mites. There are other species of mites, lots in fact, that are truly microscopic and can not be seen without a visual aide. These you learn to recognize solely by their damage. The university of Florida website’s horticulture department had a no-chemical treatment for mites posted at one point. Don’t know if it still there. You can submerge the plant in very warm water for three or four minutes and this will kill most mites. I have read in many different places the temperature of this death bath listed at various degrees between 100 and 120 Fahrenheit. 120 degrees is pretty hot, in my opinion, and it made my hand numb and red to hold Phal plants submerged for three minutes. But they survived and showed no signs of damage. The mites did not. I don’t know if this would be true for all types of orchid plants. Phals have pretty thick leaves. It is entertaining to watch a Phal ‘boil’ in 120 degree water as the gas in the upper tissue layers of the leaf expand and it sheds a thin waxy layer of something while a fine stream of bubbles is squeezed out of every pore on it’s epidermis and rises to the surface in a fine continual stream that break the surface like little tiny screams for mercy. Al I wonder if you have spidermites Rick? Someone please correct me if I am wrong but supposedly they can’t be seen (too small) ?? The only thing you see is the damage done to the plant? Cheers Wendy | Do you just apply it full strength over the entire soil area or dilute it | with water? | Think it would work with my Catteytonia Why Not? | Noticed I have a fed little buggers crawling around last time I watered on | Tuesday! | Rick~

Response:

Hi, I am certainly nowhere near as smart as most of you are on orchids but I do know how to listen. When Alan Koch owner of Gold Country spoketo our group a year ago he allowed that he doused all orchids in peroxide at deflasking and everything again about every 2-3 weeks. He bought the stuff by the barrel. I held my breath and cringed the firsttime I dumped a bottle of peroxide on a new compot of catts and in the morning instead of dead little things they looked perky and happy. I gothrough a lot of peroxide now and have had very good luck with it for everything fom mold(one flask I bought had to be deflasked VERY early due to molding) on, Can’t say if it works for mealy bugs or scale but my babies sure thrive.It is supposed to be greast for cases of crown rot and algea also. Just passing on what I have been told and what I have tried….and…no, it was striaght out of the bottle not dituled.Hope this helps someone else.Anita

Response:

Horton, dear Glenn, not Grinch! Reka (mother of two) (I may not be up on Monty Python, but I know my Dr. Seuss!) glenn schrieb: – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Listen very closely. It could be the people of Whoville. You wouldn’t want to turn out to be their Grinch!!! Glenn I’ll get out a magnifying glass and see what I can see. Hope it’s not a whole village and I end up looking into one of their windows! Rick~

Response:

Spider mites are visible to the naked eye. Just barely. You can see their damage and their dust (read do-do) even more easily. And spider mites make a fine webbing that they use to move around on and cling too. You can shake a plant suspected of spider mites over to piece of white paper and the some of the dust that falls onto it will attempt to crawl away. These would be the mites. There are other species of mites, lots in fact, that are truly microscopic and can not be seen without a visual aide. These you learn to recognize solely by their damage. The university of Florida website’s horticulture department had a no-chemical treatment for mites posted at one point. Don’t know if it still there. You can submerge the plant in very warm water for three or four minutes and this will kill most mites. I have read in many different places the temperature of this death bath listed at various degrees between 100 and 120 Fahrenheit. 120 degrees is pretty hot, in my opinion, and it made my hand numb and red to hold Phal plants submerged for three minutes. But they survived and showed no signs of damage. The mites did not. I don’t know if this would be true for all types of orchid plants. Phals have pretty thick leaves. It is entertaining to watch a Phal ‘boil’ in 120 degree water as the gas in the upper tissue layers of the leaf expand and it sheds a thin waxy layer of something while a fine stream of bubbles is squeezed out of every pore on it’s epidermis and rises to the surface in a fine continual stream that break the surface like little tiny screams for mercy. Al

I wonder if you have spidermites Rick? Someone please correct me if I am wrong but supposedly they can’t be seen (too small) ?? The only thing you see is the damage done to the plant? Cheers Wendy

Response:

Listen very closely. It could be the people of Whoville. You wouldn’t want to turn out to be their Grinch!!! Glenn

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I do admit that my eyes are not as they were when I was in my teens, but I am able to catch a glimpse of something crawling around in the dirt/moss. I’ll get out a magnifying glass and see what I can see. Hope it’s not a whole village and I end up looking into one of their windows! Rick~ I wonder if you have spidermites Rick? Someone please correct me if I am wrong but supposedly they can’t be seen (too small) ?? The only thing you see is the damage done to the plant? Cheers Wendy | Do you just apply it full strength over the entire soil area or dilute it | with water? | Think it would work with my Catteytonia Why Not? | Noticed I have a fed little buggers crawling around last time I watered on | Tuesday! | Rick~ | | I use it all the time on my regular house plants. Works | like a charm. Been lucky with the orchids, no outbreaks. | | Crystal | | — | The best reading, is reading between the lines. | _ | | | Hi all, | While researching environmentally friendly miticides to knock down a | spider mite infestation before getting the predators in to finish the | job, in addition to the usual hort oils and soaps I was intrigued to | find 3% hydrogen peroxide recommended as a miticide and particularly an | ovicide. Has anybody heard of this or tried it? Sounded too easy to be | true to me…do you suppose the bubbles tickle them to death? I’ve | heard of using peroxide as a bactericide, but not as a bugicide. | Cheers, | Sue Austin | in unbelievably buggy Ipswich, where the deerflies are the size of | helicopters, the mosquitoes can carry away small dogs and the dreaded | greenheads are only a week away…ah, the joys of summer! | | | | — | Posted from chmls05.mediaone.net [24.147.1.143] | via Mailgate.ORG Server – http://www.Mailgate.ORG | | | |

Response:

Er… that will teach me to post late at night. You guys are right to question me. The products in the store contain .25% of peroxide… thank goodness I pulled out my handy cheat sheet. That’s why when I ran out I was just using one or 2 drops per gallon. I use 2, but I like to err on the light side until I know everything is okay. So the calculation that Dale says sounds about right. Sorry guys… you can all kick me now. Crystal — The best reading, is reading between the lines. _

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – No…. don’t use full strength. I only use like 1 or 2 drops per gallon. I figure that works out to about 3%. eh? The H2O2 available at the drug store is already diluted to 3%. I believe that is what Rick was referring to when he asked "just use full strength?" As such, the answer to his question is an obvious "yes." -Dave-

Response:

Thanks for the inf.. Al Rick~

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Spider mites are visible to the naked eye. Just barely. You can see their damage and their dust (read do-do) even more easily. And spider mites make a fine webbing that they use to move around on and cling too. You can shake a plant suspected of spider mites over to piece of white paper and the some of the dust that falls onto it will attempt to crawl away. These would be the mites. There are other species of mites, lots in fact, that are truly microscopic and can not be seen without a visual aide. These you learn to recognize solely by their damage. The university of Florida website’s horticulture department had a no-chemical treatment for mites posted at one point. Don’t know if it still there. You can submerge the plant in very warm water for three or four minutes and this will kill most mites. I have read in many different places the temperature of this death bath listed at various degrees between 100 and 120 Fahrenheit. 120 degrees is pretty hot, in my opinion, and it made my hand numb and red to hold Phal plants submerged for three minutes. But they survived and showed no signs of damage. The mites did not. I don’t know if this would be true for all types of orchid plants. Phals have pretty thick leaves. It is entertaining to watch a Phal ‘boil’ in 120 degree water as the gas in the upper tissue layers of the leaf expand and it sheds a thin waxy layer of something while a fine stream of bubbles is squeezed out of every pore on it’s epidermis and rises to the surface in a fine continual stream that break the surface like little tiny screams for mercy. Al I wonder if you have spidermites Rick? Someone please correct me if I am wrong but supposedly they can’t be seen (too small) ?? The only thing you see is the damage done to the plant? Cheers Wendy | Do you just apply it full strength over the entire soil area or dilute it | with water? | Think it would work with my Catteytonia Why Not? | Noticed I have a fed little buggers crawling around last time I watered on | Tuesday! | Rick~

Response:

Thanks Dave and Crystal, I was questioning the use of drug store peroxide being diluted even more than it is. I’ll give it a try and see if these little buggers enjoy it. Any recommendations on the amount to use verses the size of the plant or just dump a pint on the guys and let it run through? Thanks for all the inf.. Rick~

Response:

I do admit that my eyes are not as they were when I was in my teens, but I am able to catch a glimpse of something crawling around in the dirt/moss. I’ll get out a magnifying glass and see what I can see. Hope it’s not a whole village and I end up looking into one of their windows! Rick~

I wonder if you have spidermites Rick? Someone please correct me if I am wrong but supposedly they can’t be seen (too small) ?? The only thing you see is the damage done to the plant? Cheers Wendy

| I use it all the time on my regular house plants. Works | like a charm. Been lucky with the orchids, no outbreaks. | | Crystal | | — | The best reading, is reading between the lines. | _ | | | Hi all, | While researching environmentally friendly miticides to knock down a | spider mite infestation before getting the predators in to finish the | job, in addition to the usual hort oils and soaps I was intrigued to | find 3% hydrogen peroxide recommended as a miticide and particularly an | ovicide. Has anybody heard of this or tried it? Sounded too easy to be | true to me…do you suppose the bubbles tickle them to death? I’ve | heard of using peroxide as a bactericide, but not as a bugicide. | Cheers, | Sue Austin | in unbelievably buggy Ipswich, where the deerflies are the size of | helicopters, the mosquitoes can carry away small dogs and the dreaded | greenheads are only a week away…ah, the joys of summer! | | | | — | Posted from chmls05.mediaone.net [24.147.1.143] | via Mailgate.ORG Server – http://www.Mailgate.ORG | | | |

Response:

: ……My trusty converter tells me there are 116739+ drops per gallon; Oops. The above number is for 2 gallons…. One US gallon only has 58369.6486175 drops.

Thanks for the correction; we wouldn’t want to dump 1.5% solution on those pesky mites, now would we? -DAve-

Response:

The stuff purchased from a drug store is 3% as-is. If you add 2 drops of that to water, you’ll end up with 0.0001%! Heck, even if you could get 100% hydrogen peroxide – I think 70% is the highest commercial concentration, and you don’t want to be fooling with that – 1 or 2 drops per gallon is only 0.0017% or 0.0034%. — Ray Barkalow –<– First Rays Orchids http://www.firstrays.com Secure Online Ordering & Lots of Free Info

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – No…. don’t use full strength. I only use like 1 or 2 drops per gallon. I figure that works out to about 3%. There are products on the market that already have this mixture. I don’t want to be responsible for hurting anyone’s babies. Crystal — The best reading, is reading between the lines. _ Do you just apply it full strength over the entire soil area or dilute it with water? Think it would work with my Catteytonia Why Not? Noticed I have a fed little buggers crawling around last time I watered on Tuesday! Rick~ I use it all the time on my regular house plants. Works like a charm. Been lucky with the orchids, no outbreaks. Crystal — The best reading, is reading between the lines. _ Hi all, While researching environmentally friendly miticides to knock down a spider mite infestation before getting the predators in to finish the job, in addition to the usual hort oils and soaps I was intrigued to find 3% hydrogen peroxide recommended as a miticide and particularly an ovicide. Has anybody heard of this or tried it? Sounded too easy to be true to me…do you suppose the bubbles tickle them to death? I’ve heard of using peroxide as a bactericide, but not as a bugicide. Cheers, Sue Austin in unbelievably buggy Ipswich, where the deerflies are the size of helicopters, the mosquitoes can carry away small dogs and the dreaded greenheads are only a week away…ah, the joys of summer! — Posted from chmls05.mediaone.net [24.147.1.143] via Mailgate.ORG Server – http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Response:

: ……My trusty converter tells me there are 116739+ drops per gallon; Oops. The above number is for 2 gallons…. One US gallon only has 58369.6486175 drops.

Response:

I wonder if you have spidermites Rick? Someone please correct me if I am wrong but supposedly they can’t be seen (too small) ?? The only thing you see is the damage done to the plant? Cheers Wendy

Response:

: No…. don’t use full strength. I only use like 1 or 2 drops : per gallon. I figure that works out to about 3%. There : are products on the market that already have this : mixture. I don’t want to be responsible for hurting : anyone’s babies. Hmmm. My trusty converter tells me there are 116739+ drops per gallon; of course that depends on viscosity. That means at your maximum dilution rate, you’re applying .0017% hydrogen peroxide <if what you pour out of the bottle is 100% H2O2. Hydrogen peroxide rapidly breaks down in the presence of light and heat to H2O and O2. I certainly think that 2 drops in 116737 drops of tepid water full of ‘other’ ions would be rapidly degraded. I think it’s the water. Mites don’t like water….. It’s kinda like a hypodermic needle injection. Is it really the serum in the barrel of the syringe that works, or is it acupuncture?

Response:

No…. don’t use full strength. I only use like 1 or 2 drops per gallon. I figure that works out to about 3%.

eh? The H2O2 available at the drug store is already diluted to 3%. I believe that is what Rick was referring to when he asked "just use full strength?" As such, the answer to his question is an obvious "yes." -Dave-

Response:

No…. don’t use full strength. I only use like 1 or 2 drops per gallon. I figure that works out to about 3%. There are products on the market that already have this mixture. I don’t want to be responsible for hurting anyone’s babies. Crystal — The best reading, is reading between the lines. _

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Do you just apply it full strength over the entire soil area or dilute it with water? Think it would work with my Catteytonia Why Not? Noticed I have a fed little buggers crawling around last time I watered on Tuesday! Rick~ I use it all the time on my regular house plants. Works like a charm. Been lucky with the orchids, no outbreaks. Crystal — The best reading, is reading between the lines. _ Hi all, While researching environmentally friendly miticides to knock down a spider mite infestation before getting the predators in to finish the job, in addition to the usual hort oils and soaps I was intrigued to find 3% hydrogen peroxide recommended as a miticide and particularly an ovicide. Has anybody heard of this or tried it? Sounded too easy to be true to me…do you suppose the bubbles tickle them to death? I’ve heard of using peroxide as a bactericide, but not as a bugicide. Cheers, Sue Austin in unbelievably buggy Ipswich, where the deerflies are the size of helicopters, the mosquitoes can carry away small dogs and the dreaded greenheads are only a week away…ah, the joys of summer! — Posted from chmls05.mediaone.net [24.147.1.143] via Mailgate.ORG Server – http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Response:

Do you just apply it full strength over the entire soil area or dilute it with water? Think it would work with my Catteytonia Why Not? Noticed I have a fed little buggers crawling around last time I watered on Tuesday! Rick~

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I use it all the time on my regular house plants. Works like a charm. Been lucky with the orchids, no outbreaks. Crystal — The best reading, is reading between the lines. _ Hi all, While researching environmentally friendly miticides to knock down a spider mite infestation before getting the predators in to finish the job, in addition to the usual hort oils and soaps I was intrigued to find 3% hydrogen peroxide recommended as a miticide and particularly an ovicide. Has anybody heard of this or tried it? Sounded too easy to be true to me…do you suppose the bubbles tickle them to death? I’ve heard of using peroxide as a bactericide, but not as a bugicide. Cheers, Sue Austin in unbelievably buggy Ipswich, where the deerflies are the size of helicopters, the mosquitoes can carry away small dogs and the dreaded greenheads are only a week away…ah, the joys of summer! — Posted from chmls05.mediaone.net [24.147.1.143] via Mailgate.ORG Server – http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Response:

I use it all the time on my regular house plants. Works like a charm. Been lucky with the orchids, no outbreaks. Crystal — The best reading, is reading between the lines. _

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi all, While researching environmentally friendly miticides to knock down a spider mite infestation before getting the predators in to finish the job, in addition to the usual hort oils and soaps I was intrigued to find 3% hydrogen peroxide recommended as a miticide and particularly an ovicide. Has anybody heard of this or tried it? Sounded too easy to be true to me…do you suppose the bubbles tickle them to death? I’ve heard of using peroxide as a bactericide, but not as a bugicide. Cheers, Sue Austin in unbelievably buggy Ipswich, where the deerflies are the size of helicopters, the mosquitoes can carry away small dogs and the dreaded greenheads are only a week away…ah, the joys of summer! — Posted from chmls05.mediaone.net [24.147.1.143] via Mailgate.ORG Server – http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Response:

Hi all, While researching environmentally friendly miticides to knock down a spider mite infestation before getting the predators in to finish the job, in addition to the usual hort oils and soaps I was intrigued to find 3% hydrogen peroxide recommended as a miticide and particularly an ovicide. Has anybody heard of this or tried it? Sounded too easy to be true to me…do you suppose the bubbles tickle them to death? I’ve heard of using peroxide as a bactericide, but not as a bugicide. Cheers, Sue Austin in unbelievably buggy Ipswich, where the deerflies are the size of helicopters, the mosquitoes can carry away small dogs and the dreaded greenheads are only a week away…ah, the joys of summer! — Posted from chmls05.mediaone.net [24.147.1.143] via Mailgate.ORG Server – http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Response:

Filed under: Orchid Plants

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

TrackBack URL | RSS feed for comments on this post.

The Orchid Garden